


Coffee Won't Help

by Townycod13



Category: South Park
Genre: Coffeeshop AU, M/M, just shenanigans that occur, sorta psychic kyle kinda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-19
Updated: 2018-07-19
Packaged: 2019-06-01 17:53:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15148622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Townycod13/pseuds/Townycod13
Summary: Kyle keeps seeing strange and unexplainable things out of the corner of his eye, seeing things that shouldn't be there. It all seems to lead back to a certain blond.





	Coffee Won't Help

It started with a coffee shop.

The quiet atmosphere of a small, likely family owned, establishment that had focused the entirety of it’s decor on appealing to hipsters through a series of homey and nostalgic touches. A record from a little known band from the eighties hanging on the wall, couches instead of proper chairs, and a hand-written menu.

It was charming in its own way.

The soft voice of a joking barista and the jerking motions of another. The place seemed to be entirely staffed by blonds, a strange touch to what felt like a strictly brunette atmosphere.

It started at a tiny coffee shop less than a mile away from the law firm where he worked. Ordering a black coffee while pouring over the seemingly endless stacks of paperwork that threatened to defy the laws about conservation of mass.

It was the distant scream of something outside the realm of his understanding and a wind sent whole piles of painstakingly organized dead trees flying through the air.

In that moment, he stared blankly at the after image of a running child, screaming at the top of it’s lungs, and running at top speed.

But there was nothing there. No child and no scream. It was just a gust of wind in a coffee shop. There was a logical explanation, of course, the air conditioner, or a runaway fan, or one of the baristas pulling a prank.

By the time his scattered thoughts were gathered his papers had already descended to the ground where a helpful barista was attempting to gather them, making the entire task worse because he hadn’t the faintest clue about Kyle’s filing system.

“Excuse me, I’d appreciate if you didn’t--” his words caught when he saw that same child out of the corner of his eye, glaring orange parka instantly attracting his attention and holding it.

When he turned there was no child but he thought he could see blood splattered carelessly on the tables.

“Sir?” the barista’s concerned voice cut into his thoughts and in the blink of an eye all he could see was a normal cafe.

“It’s nothing.” Kyle said, a touch snappishly, and pulled away the offered papers rougher than necessary. Not even bothering to look at his helper in his haste, “Thanks.”

Great. He was so sleep deprived he was seeing shit. And now he was going to spend the better part of twenty minutes painstakingly reorganizing his paperwork.

“You’re welcome.” there was a distinct professional politeness to the tone, the clip of an employee that was all too aware that the customer wasn’t always right but that didn’t mean he would get a say in the matter, “Let me know if you need anything.”

It was subtle reminders like these that servers were people too that could hit a person hard.

Kyle felt a guilt gnaw at him for his behavior but by the time he looked up from his papers the barista was already busing another table.

The haphazardly collected paperwork weighed in his hands and he felt silly getting upset over something so small. It wasn’t the barista’s fault he’d dropped everything. It wasn’t anyone’s fault.

This would go on the list of many days that Kyle would sit up at night thinking about, reworking in his brain as regret tore apart his ability to sleep and drowned him in the insomnia of embarrassment sprinkled on the cupcake of shame.

Maybe he could get up the guts to fix this one. Leave a large tip and meaningful apology. Something. Anything. He was tired of losing sleep over regret.

Finding the opportunity was the problem.

He couldn’t help but glance up, here and there, to check what the barista was doing and it was making filing take much longer than it should. Watching for an opportunity to apologize.

It was a bit challenging to keep up sometimes, the barista had hustle and the cafe was well occupied.

Glancing became too tiresome apparently.

He didn’t realize he was staring.

It was mesmerizing. The way he moved was like a dance, slow but meaningful, quick but precise, there was an internal music to each step that Kyle wanted to hear.

Like the way he would stand just at the tip of his toes while turning to wipe a table, the smooth arching motion he used to expertly clean and then snap the cloth energetically. It was hard to put into words, he didn’t think he’d have the ability to do so if asked, they were simple actions taken by any employee within the establishment.

But they were  _ distinct _ . In a way he’d never seen. A bounce here and the barista crossed the room without missing a step and smiled winningly at a guest. A flick of his wrist had a flare that moved from the paper to the air with the cheerful accuracy usually accompanied with finding the right answer on a test with ease.

He was dancing but to his own beat. Shining bright and not wasting a single movement. They weren’t excess, even in enthusiasm, they were part of the dance.

Kyle wanted to hear the music that had to matching the skips and smiles.

He didn’t catch himself until another employee whispered something to the barista and he laughed.

Laughed was too simple a description.

Kyle felt trapped in that moment.

His entire body laughed.

It wasn’t a chuckle hidden behind fingers or an overly dramatic hysteria.

His body shook with the power of a deep and rumbling laugh. One hand slapped his knee was sparked another giggle that illustrated the joy in every pore. The joyful wrinkles around his eyes and the easy careless set to his shoulders.

His posture, his face, his enthusiastic hand gestures, his choked out words between giggles.

And at the end of it Kyle’s eyes ended up locked with the amused barista’s and he looked away in startled embarrassment.

How long had he been staring? It was a mystery that would haunt him. He didn’t want to know the answer.

The sound of the dance growing closer made him gnaw his bottom lip in despair.

“Did you need anything, sir?”

The voice was still touched with the shadow of his earlier laughs, clearly whatever he’d heard had been enough to last, Kyle wanted to know what it was.

What made him happy? What sort of thing tickled his fancy and brought him such intense joviality?

“Nothing!” Kyle snapped, hating himself more than ever for the inability to communicate. He had an entire career based on his ability to make himself heard but intricacies of simple conversation still wrankled his nerves.

“Okay.” the joy had faded and Kyle felt as though his heart was a rock, plummeting through the earths crust to meet with the molten core of the planet.

He’d taken away another's happiness with only one word. Another regret.

That seemingly endless list of occurrences that haunted him.

He didn’t want to regret anymore.

He took an uneven intake of breath, reaching in the air for courage.

“I-- I just wanted to apologize. For earlier. I didn’t mean to snap at you.”

There wasn’t an immediate response and Kyle tried to decipher anything from the expression other than polite civility.

“That? Don’t worry about that, dude. People get snippy all the time.” he shrugged, smiling politely.

Kyle didn’t really like that the smile didn’t reach his eyes, “Still. It’s not okay. No one should snap at you while you’re just doing your job. That was shitty of me. You’re clearly competent at your work and there’s no reason I should give you shit because I’m having a bad day.”

“Oh.” there was loss in the tone, surprise touching the edge of that infinitely polite smile, “Thanks, I guess?” he chuckled a little, nothing on the laugh from earlier that would light Kyle’s thoughts for a time to come, but infinitely better than the polite smile, “You’re a really serious guy.”

“So I’ve been told.” Kyle said automatically, ready for the defense and forever unable to stop himself. Defensive, always so defensive despite all and seeing attacks where there were none. He hated the words even as they left.

Force his opinions on others and grow defensive over disagreement. A seemingly endless pattern he couldn’t escape.

The blond laughed again, “Chill, dude. I don’t mean it in a bad way. It’s kinda cool. Refreshing, ya know?”

The words resounded somewhere in him and untangled a knot in his stomach he hadn’t even noticed growing.

Kyle gulped and nodded, the paperwork in front of him suddenly looking intensely interesting, “Thanks. I guess.” he mirrored the earlier statement without noticing, now rustling the papers as a hint to be left alone.

His face felt like the inferno beneath the earth where his heart was being stored.

“No probs, my dude.” the barista responded, relaxed in a way that relieved the tension in Kyle’s shoulders, “I’ll let you get back to work.”

Kyle nodded, not trusting himself to speak and watching the words swirl on the paperwork.

When was the last time anyone had complimented his personality?

Refreshing.

Kyle felt a dangerously sincere smile grow as his earlier discontent ran for the hills, he’d been called  _ refreshing _ .

He didn’t get a single thing done the rest of the time he sat there, though he tried to remember his own intricate organizing system over the music that now flooded his ears that was his own and his alone.

The music that could only be described as one person that Kyle didn’t even know by name.

It started in a coffee shop.

\---

It continued on the street, as he walked past a park he had countless times before.

One moment he was walking without a care for his destination or the time it would take to get there, a stroll by the familiar structures in the neighborhood he’d grown up in, and the next he saw a familiar patch of orange out of the corner of his eye.

Chasing something unknown he turned just in time to watch the child rush into the road.

Panic assaulted him and he lurched forward but not in time.

One moment the child was alive and the next, a bloody and discarded mass on the asphalt. He ran forward, reaching for his phone to dial 911 but like the time before, the child disappeared. Replaced by clean black asphalt marking the well paved street and the cars that casually speeding past.

“Are--are you okay, dude?”

Kyle blinked, distinctly not okay and overly aware of the potential indications of delusions like these. With nightmares of tumors and insanity clung to his thoughts, he turned to the voice.

He should have recognized that tenor. It was masked with concern though and Kyle was left utterly shocked as he saw the man from the cafe days prior.

“I...I’m fine. I just thought I saw something.”

“Worried me for a second, it looked like you were gonna jump into a busy street.”

Kyle laughed mirthlessly, eyes darting back to where the child's broken body had lain and heart still pounding with anxiety at the sight.

“Seriously though, are you okay?” concern pinched the corners of his eyes and Kyle felt guilty for scaring the stranger, “You look like you saw a ghost.”

A ghost would be less terrifying to Kyle. The implications of that would be simple. There is an afterlife, of sorts, and it involves re-living one's death in a ghostly fashion for the random passersby. It was far fetched but it wasn’t something kyle would have to personally worry about for a time to come.

The terror that something was seriously wrong with him, knowledgeable it might speed the time he would be concerned with after lives into coming much sooner, was far more real and paralyzing.

“Yeah. Yeah. i’m fine. I thought there was--a cat. I was worried it would get hurt.”

“You’d rush into the road for a cat?” the tone was genuinely curious, the same as back in the cafe when his voice had relaxed out of tight professionalism, “That’s pretty cool. Stupid, but cool.”

Kyle swallowed, he didn’t think he was the type to risk his life for a cat but suddenly he wanted to be. Like claiming he would out loud, fictitiously as he had, brought it into reality.

That and the way the blond was looking at him was doing something seriously distressing to his stomach and ability to think clearly.

He didn’t even realize he’d been called stupid until it was too late to defend himself.

“You still look a little panicked, man.” he said, “Wanna sit down until you calm down? There’s some swings in the park.”

“There’s also a bench.” Kyle pointed out. Pragmatic. Simple.

The mischievous lilt of joy in the boys expression was contagious. Kyle felt a tug to his own lips. “But swings are  _ better _ .”

He shouldn’t be following a stranger into a park to sit on the swings like children, the rational side of him chided, he should continue his walk and make an appointment with a doctor and a psychologist over his hallucinations.

The part of him that still couldn’t help staring after every movement of the enchanting stranger had him following onto the wood chips that had long replaced the sandbox of his childhood. He missed the sand.

The energized way that the guy plopped on the swing had Kyle sitting down awkwardly, too old to remember why this sort of thing was amusing and wishing he had even a portion of the  _ life  _ the other had.

That was what it was.

The reason that energy and his movements stuck out to Kyle so much. It looked so  _ alive _ . More so than anyone he had ever met.

Jean clad legs kicked out and to Kyle’s surprise, the man was swinging.

It shouldn’t surprise him but it was so distinctly childish that Kyle felt like the dumb one for keeping his feet stock still and locked onto the earth.

“I’m Kenny, by the way.” the guy introduced himself, no mind for any etiquette or handshakes, just swinging higher and higher, “What’s your name?”

He shouldn’t give his name to some stranger.

“Kyle.” his shoes shifted on the ground beneath him, the temptation to swing forward growing with each passing moment.

“That’s a cute name.” Kenny said, smooth as can be and jumping to land expertly in the wood chips before Kyle could properly digest the words. Kenny spun around, that same spin that had him at the tip of his toes and smiling ear to ear, “Cute and serious, that’s a good mix.” he nodded as though he was somehow an authority on the matter.

The heat emanating from Kyle’s cheeks scared him. Was he getting hit on? It was hard to tell. Kenny marched to his own beat. He could just be overly complimentary.

“Thanks?”

Kenny shrugged, still smiling, and in one motion that was half leap and half skip, was back to the swings and moving behind Kyle.

Oh god he was alone at a park in the evening with some stranger that had just snuck behind him.

“Lift your legs.”

Kyle obeyed unthinkingly and a small pressure at the small of his back was his only warning before the whoosh of air.

He clung desperately to the chain as he ascended and descended, that same pressure touching him again and shaken a bit with laughter.

Kyle wanted to  _ see _ that laugh but he dared not look behind him, the gentle rhythm of being pushed on a swing and touching the sky.

The sky.

That had been the appeal of this, when he was a child, closer and closer to the clouds above.

His legs kicked out to reach the sky and folded back, the sounds of Kenny’s laughter and the crickets of the early evening the only things that mattered.

“Holyshit, dude.” Kenny giggled, still pushing him forward, “You should have heard yourself. That shriek was hilarious.”

Did he shriek?

He couldn’t recall. It hadn’t entered his mind and imprinted on his memory. This moment though, the sky above and Kenny below. This was going to lock into his memory for the rest of his life.

His heart soared with the knowledge and he kicked forward with more enthusiasm, “I didn't shriek.” he defended, too late and uncaring.

The pressure disappeared but a moment later Kenny’s smiling face could be see on the neighboring swing, kicking forward and ascending out of sync with Kyle’s.

“Sure.” Kenny said.

Higher.

Kenny was already catching up and Kyle’s competitive streak immediately latched on, attempting to make sure he was always higher than the other boy.

He hadn’t felt this free in years.

He didn’t want to admit it but Kenny was right, swings were better.

“Feeling better?” Kenny asked, breathless with the height.

Kyle laughed, open and real, hardly remembering what he was cheering up from, “No, I’m a full ass grown adult swinging in the park like an idiot.” his voice had no bite.

Kenny giggled, “So?”

“So,” Kyle began, a powerful kick sending him to the zeanath. “I think i need to do stupid shit like this more often.”

Kenny didn’t miss a beat, “I’m something stupid.”

Kyle choked, the meaning of the words clogging some meaningful cog in his mind and sending his previously impressive swings to a staggering slow, and gracelessly jumping off the swing in a ridiculous attempt to hide his own fluster.

It ended badly for him, tripping on the stillness of earth and hands meeting wood chips. This was why he missed the sad, the chips were much harder. He stood up quickly, pretending to dust himself off while he avoided looking back at Kenny.

Kenny, who’s laughs were entirely unwelcome in this moment of panic as Kyle tried to play catch up with his brain, seemed without a care in the world.

Was he flirting? That had to be flirting.

Did he want Kenny to be flirting?

He didn’t know but he wanted to retreat before he messed up. Or proceeded. Or anything. He needed to think this out. All of this. What was he supposed to do? He had to analyze all of this.

Like a complicated court case, he needed a recess, re-evaluate his notes and rethink his strategy. Return to the judge fully prepared to destroy any arguments and counter-arguments.

Kyle scrambled for his phone and didn’t even register the numbers on the screen before he squeaked, “Look at the time! I gotta go! Thanks for the swing!”

He darted away, a new memory to keep him up at night. The sound of Kenny’s laughs dying away, unknowing if it was distance or disappointment.

\---

It ended outside that same coffee shop.

He’d been to specialist after specialist but nothing had thus far explained his brief hallucinations and the unknown was scarier than anything else.

Putting a pin in one mystery and approaching another, Kyle had come to get coffee and see Kenny, but that same child was standing outside the building.

The bit of orange didn’t run away, like so many times before, it stood next to him and fiddled with it’s mitten clad hands, nerves edging in its every action.

He reminded himself there was no child there. There was nothing but his apparently over-active imagination and the morbid figment it brought forth.

The child looked up and for a moment bathed in blue, Kyle felt like the specter was looking right at him.

And in that same moment he burst into flames, screaming and rolling in an attempt to put out the fire. Kyle’s body jerked to help before he could stop him but it was too late.

The child stopped moving. Burnt to a crisp. Startlingly blue eyes vacant and unseeing.

Kyle felt nauseous.

A finger tapped his shoulder and he looked towards the concerned face of Kenny, the barista, clad in his apron and just a step outside the store with eyes a sky full of concern.

It was the same blue.

Kyle felt caught somehow.

It clicked.

Every time he’d seen the child, Kenny hadn’t been far behind.

That didn’t make sense though, what could Kenny have been doing to make him hallucinate about a young child dying?

“Kyle?”

Kyle’s mouth opened with a cascade of questions he wanted to use as a shield and a weapon against the empty unknown.

It clamped shut before a single word escaped.

“Are you okay?”

It felt like Kenny said that every time they met. Kyle nodded, still not trusting his words, and gestured for them to enter the store, taking the chair he’d sat in before and not once allowing his eyes to leave the target.

Calculating what could have caused this. If drugs made sense. If ghosts made sense. If Kenny made sense.

“Do you want a drink?” Kenny asked, an anxious lilt to his voice that would normally irk Kyle.

Kyle just nodded, providing no other details, and Kenny disappeared to retrieve him some water.

Three times he’d watched a boy in orange die.

The doctors said he had no tumor, the psych’s said he had no schizophrenia.

And Kenny in the middle, looking innocent and kind. A man that seemed so very alive but had the same eyes of a dead boy.

A boy that died three times. That Kyle had seen.

Kyle had two modes when the world stopped making sense. The first was outright denial and logical explanations, as most things could be explained using science or just plain rational thought. The second required accepting the perimeters thrown at him. Accept, assess, solve.

He listed what little he did know as a fact.

The first one was he could see a boy in an orange parka die. The second was there was some link between that boy and Kenny, the barista that had his attention as well as pulse racing.

Follow the facts, make assessments, find answers.

“Dude, you look like something crawled up your ass and died, do you want a coffee or something?”

Kyle looked the man up and down. Trying to find details he’d missed, something to explain what couldn’t be explained.

“Do you believe in ghosts?”

Kenny paused, glass of water barely clinking against the wood of Kyle’s table, “That’s a weird one.” he laughed, a stiff sound that stopped at his face. No movement, no eyes illuminated with joy, “What brought that on?”

“Just curious.” Kyle said, taking the water from the frozen hand without hesitation. Nerves were forgotten in the wake of a mystery he was going to solve. There was something stiff about the man's posture. Something uncomfortable. Kyle pressed on, “Do you?”

Kenny shrugged, “I guess? I don’t have any evidence to the contrary and anything’s possible, right?”

“No strong feelings either way then.” Kyle surmised.

This line of questioning wouldn’t get him the answers. He’d need a different one.

“What about reincarnation?”

Kenny actually choked on the air, the coughing fit that followed earning them some choice looks from the other patrons as well as Kenny’s coworkers.

“Sorry,” Kenny managed, coughing again, “Choked on… air.” he finished lamely.

“No problem.” the mystery had his undivided attention, “Well?”

Again, a shrug. Again, a non committal answer. Again, the normally cheerfully untethered man showed a stiff restraint that looked so strange.

Kyle felt like he just hadn’t found the right question. He was more sure than ever that Kenny knew  _ something _ . But he needed to find the question. One that would unlock the doors stopping Kenny from sharing his sincere thoughts.

One that would explain the child.

Before he could mastermind his next attempt, Kenny held up a hand, “Look, I’m not sure what’s gotten into you but this hardly seems fair. How about for every question you ask, I get one in return.” Kenny winked, “Only seems fair.”

Kyle measured this. Nodded. Awaited the first question while taking a sip of his water.

“Three sizes?”

Kyle spit out his drink, staring in disbelief at the smarmy grin of his barista.

“ _ Excuse _ me?!”

“Hey, I answered your questions. You owe me.”

Complaints and arguments bubbled up in Kyle but he still wanted to find answers the mystery of the captivating blond, “I-- don’t know.” he said honestly.

Kenny laughed a little, something musical in this one, “Alright, i’ll take it. What’s your next question?”

Kyle searched his mind for a good one.

“Do you have any siblings?”

“Two. A little sister and an older brother.” Kenny rested his chin on his palms, leaning against the table in a terribly unprofessional way, “My turn; do you prefer to top or bottom?”

Kyle wondered if this was a sort of terrorism to stop him from asking uncomfortable questions. It was working. Kyle had no response to the flagrant disregard of decency, but his search for answers demanded more, “I, I don’t really have a preference?”

He could really do without the distinctly dirty smile on Kenny’s face, Kyle decided to cut in before something terrible was said, “Do you think it’s possible to die more than once?”

Whatever answer he might have received was cut by a third voice, “GAH--what are you doing, Kenny?! Getbacktowork and stop bothering the customer!”

Kenny rose and gave a quick excuse, this being work and all, “Feel free to come back and ask questions any time.”

“I will.” Kyle promised, frowning at the wink.

Kenny giggled, “It’s a date.”

\---

There was no shadow of a child dying the next time he went to the cafe. Or the next. Or the next.

But there were a lot of questions. Very little in the way of answers.

“Thoughts on astral projection?”

“Thoughts on blowjobs?”

An afternoon there spent trying to reason his way through an appropriate answer in a public space and wishing he had Kenny’s apparent talent for answering a question while saying nothing at all.

“Know anything about hallucination inducing drugs?”

“Know anything about Nascar?”

A Tuesday between court apperances taking a reprieve to talk about interests, learning bits and pieces that filled out a character left him with the irresistible desire to smile.

“Is there any history of deaths in this building?”

“Is there any truth to redheads being kinky as fuck?”

A Sunday threatening to break his nerves and calm, a test to his ability to find the truth. A test of his perseverance to the topic at hand. A strangely calming aspect to the smarmy smile that caused the initial agitation.

“Have you ever seen someone die?”

“Have you ever had sex so good that you lost your connection to reality, just for a moment?”

A morning here where he’s caught looking at how the sunlight just peeking through the windows dances on Kenny’s cheeks and he wonders for just one treacherous moment if Kenny has the same lively dance that makes him so mesmerizing under the sheets.

“...is the entirety of your curiosity about the world based in carnal vulgarity?”

“Is there something you like to do with your time other than ask morbid questions to baristas?”

An evening spent wasting his questions on meaningless trivia and learning little details like how Kenny preferred choco to coffee, and tea above all. Ignoring the chastisement of his manager for neglecting his work in favor of the questions that could be answered without verbal gymnastics.

“Can waking dreams distort space?”

“Can you swallow?”

A Saturday spent sitting while looking at cases and finding his words easier, easier than they had been in years. In a courtroom there were rules, practiced bottled sentences and pre-planned speeches. An extension of debate class. People weren’t like that.The more time he spent in a courtroom, the less he found himself able to communicate properly without shoving his feet so far down his throat he choked. The more time he spent with Kenny though, the more the words loosened, dislodging and allowing him the wit he knew he’d had previously.

“Do you own an orange parka?”

It was a random question after a long series of seeming failures, weeks after questions that Kyle felt were actually relevant to solving the mystery. To the extent that he wondered whether or not the solution was even important at this point, as the dying child had long since disappeared from his peripheral.

It caught Kenny and he gave a puzzled little smile while quirking his head to the side, “I did, when I was a child. It’s long since been worn to death though.”

The way he laughed was morbid and secretive, like an inside joke had been spoken that no one could know.

It made something tight coil in Kyle. A spring of emotions because despite all logic, because he did get the inside joke.

He’d found the right question.

And yet, looking in the shadows that hid behind Kenny’s eyes. Memories of terrible things that led the adult male to dodge morbid question after morbid question he could have answered more directly... Kyle found he couldn’t press for more information.

If Kenny did’t want to share, that was okay. He quelled the curiosity in him that demanded answers. Answers weren’t as important as people.

And Kenny was certainly important.

The thought was so true that Kyle felt the spring uncoil entirely, leaving him breathless at a new realization.

“My turn I guess.” Kenny mimed wiping the table, a vain attempt to look like he was working while he played twenty questions with a regular, “You said you play basketball, right? Does that mean you have abs? Because that would be hot. Not that you need much help in that regard.”

Among the series of lewd inquisitions Kenny had tossed his way over the past few weeks, this one didn’t even rank, but Kyle still colored a bit, mostly at nerves from his own chosen answer, “You’d have to find that out for yourself.”

He felt pretty proud of that one. Especially when he was rewarded with Kenny nearly losing his balance over the table and momentarily speechless.

Kyle took the lead, heart pounding, “My turn. What are you doing Friday night?”

Kenny’s eyes were as wide as saucers, Kyle thought he could see the irritated manager actually stumble having apparently eavesdropped.

Kenny was a mystery. And so was the child.

Kenny was also sweet and funny. A caring but utterly foul mouthed man with a dance in his step and if Kyle was utterly and entirely honest, he was sold from the moment he first saw the man laugh.

“I--uh--” it was utterly miraculous to see Kenny as the flustered one for once, searching for words while his cheeks colored. Kyle had the temptations to reach forward and feel the warmth there but he restrained himself. Kenny coughed and gathered himself, an uneasy little tension tickling his shoulders before he spoke, “I’m going on a date.” Kenny said finally.

Kyle’s eyebrows shot up, “You are.”

“Yep!” Kenny popped the p, still sounding shaken but regaining some of his normal mischief, “With this cute redhead that is gonna sweep me off my feet and take me to a fancy restaurant.”

Kyle hid a smile behind his fingers, “Is he, now?”

“Hm-mm.” Kenny affirmed, growing more confident and cheerful with each second that passed, “He’s gonna pay too, really woo me with his fancy lawyer money. And then we’re going out to ice-cream and eat it on the swing sets.”

“Uh-huh. And does this cute lawyer know he’s doing this?”

Kenny grinned, a full body smile that took his entire body to express, the energy and life within him as spellbinding as the first time Kyle saw him and really  _ saw  _ him.

“I think he’ll figure it out.”

  
  



End file.
